Tarsem Singh May Direct A New ‘Snow White’ Movie

We’ve known for awhile now that everyone’s favorite filmmaker, Brett Ratner (*cough*), was producing The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, a new cinematic adaptation of the classic folk tale.

Now the word is out that Relativity Media has offered the directorial reigns for that Snow White adaptation to a far less mainstream auteur – a successful commercial director by the name of Tarsem Singh.

The Brothers Grimm: Snow White was scripted by Melisa Wallack and is reportedly far more similar to the dark nature of the original story – in which the Seven Dwarves were robbers and a dragon featured into the plot – rather than Walt Disney’s classic animated feature. Ratner specifically described the new film as “edgy”, an adjective that feels more than a bit overused by Hollywood nowadays.

But Singh – who for a while just went by Tarsem – has a distinctly flamboyant and often warped visual style as a director and his version of Snow White would probably actually deserve to be called edgy. Moviegoers that are familiar with Singh’s previous work know that he likes to create evocative imagery – as evidenced best in his psycho-horror film The Cell (see below), which takes place largely within the mind of a serial killer.

Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D’Onofrio in ‘The Cell’.

Brothers Grimm isn’t the only Snow White movie in the works – it has to compete against the likes of Snow White & the Huntsman, which is being developed by Alice in Wonderland producer Joe Roth and Walt Disney Pictures’ Snow White and the Seven (which involves Shaolin monks, bizarrely enough). Each of these three projects is “unique” in their own way, but moviegoers aren’t exactly demanding to see a plethora of movies that offer different spins on the classic Snow White story.

Which of these Snow White pics will emerge victorious at the box office? Relativity Media wants an A-lister like Anne Hathaway or Scarlett Johansson to star as the fair-skinned princess in The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, which would certainly draw more attention to the project and help sell tickets. But will the masses really go for an “edgy” Snow White movie?